Unifi Rack Build Part 1

In this video, I'm installing a whole bunch of Unifi equipment into my server rack: 3 Unifi Pro Max 48 PoE switches, one Aggregation Switch, one UNVR Pro, one PDU Pro, and UDM Pro SE, and more.
* 0:00 Intro
* 0:11 The Plan
* 0:48 Configuration
* 1:43 Installation
* 4:59 Final Results

“A basic network infrastructure”. Nice 😎

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your comment! Hehe I guess it’s not quite “basic”, but it is the most fundamental network infrastructure of the house, with everything else built on top of it.

[@kamiraa]

With the walls opened up you should run fiber drops to each room just in case. Fiber is so cheap now a days and its a great upgrade path to have something ready for up to 100gbps if you ever need it.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

^^^ this, fully agree !

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your suggestion! The walls are already closed, and as of right now, we haven't run any fiber. BUT, we have still planned for it in all the places that matter. As is typical in North Carolina, the house has a crawlspace underneath of it. We ran four 2-inch pipes from the AV closet to the crawl space for future expansion (which as if right now are completely unused). This means that every room in the first floor can be easily retrofitted with fiber. That covers the primary bedroom, the two offices, the great room, as well as a hobby space that I plan to use for creating music and videos. Additionally, we have run conduit in the great room to allow running future cables through the wall behind the TV. As for the second floor, it's not quite as easy, but honestly, I don't think we'll use fiber in any of the upstairs bedrooms. We do have a movie room where we also ran conduit for future upgrades.

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Yeah, fiber is planned for but not currently installed, see my other comment. Btw, I just checked out your channel. I'm using the VerticalCable I-Punch myself, it's a game changer. I let the guys from our security company borrow it for the rack installation, and they loved it, too.

[@asimmohali]

This is fantastic, I'll definitely be following the progress on the project. Good luck!

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thank you for your support and for your kind words! Will definitely post an update once I get the rack all powered up and connected to the internet :)

You've got a subscriber! Looking forward to the whole house build.

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your support! Progress is going steady, should have a video again in a few weeks! :)

[@techtalkandtechunboxed]

Looks great waiting for next part where everything will be connected

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your support! I’ll definitely check out your channel as well, looks great at first glance :)

[@techtalkandtechunboxed]

@@CarolinaHomeTech wow 🤩 thanks really love this community

[@djmaisuria]

looks awesome !

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@electronicgaming1252]

hi there, great video keep us updated, what programm did you use for planing(looks great)

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your support! I used excalidraw.com which is an open source solution for diagrams. It’s very simple, but also powerful and extensible. I recommend it fully, but be on the lookout for integrations into other products you may be using.

[@tcntad87]

Mad level and makes me whonder if this is professional or just side hustle :D Looks awesome either way

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks! It's actually neither. I'm a software engineer by trade, and this is the first time that I'm setting up more than a wireless router. :)

[@cybr774]

Really cool setup, I also have the rack mount for 3 nucs, it's a bit unfortunate that it feels like it can easily be bent if you apply some force on it (not sure if you also noticed it😢)

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thank you for your kind words! Ah that’s good to know that the rack mount is easily bent. I haven’t noticed since I’ve had it pushed in all the way the entire time, and have yet to install the NUCs, but it’s good to know to be careful! Thanks for the heads up!

[@cybr774]

@@CarolinaHomeTech but honestly the rackmount from mk1 manufacturing looks neat! I even had to pay double it's price due to shipping costs all the way here in Europe, but if I had to I would buy it again from how nice it looks

[@mh166]

Nice setup and great looking house! I subbed to see where the journey is gonna take you. 😊 Would you consider making a video about what considerations went into the design of the network? The overview you were showing in the video looked already promising. I'm always interested in getting inspirations for when I'll be building a house in the future. Maybe you could also do videos like that for other parts of the construction to show not only what you build but also why (or why not)? This would be great to watch, I'm sure. 😃

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Hey, thanks for your support! Absolutely, one of my future videos will go into the network design and configuration. Our house actually took much longer to plan than the average house of comparable size, since we wanted to get every detail right. There are hundreds of little things that we have added everywhere, many of which are tech-related but some aren’t, and I can’t wait to share the final product with all of you.

[@mh166]

Sounds great. Can't wait to see more! :)

[@BagusHanindhito]

Great project. I would like to follow the progress. Will you install all cat6 cable by yourself?

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for the kind words! The CAT6 cables across the house were installed by a security company. It's over 120 cables, so that would've taken me too long to do myself! But if you pay close attention to this video, in the after shot there are a few blue cables hanging out of the rack. I added them off camera to connect the PDU, a future UPS, and my NUCs to the switches. Everything that's inside the rack and inside the AV closet, I will wire myself.

[@DPCTechnology]

Looks awesome man!

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks! I'm a big fan of your channel btw. I learned a lot from your videos, which ultimately influenced my plans :)

[@DPCTechnology]

@@CarolinaHomeTech Awsome! Your new home looks AMAZING!!!

[@remio0912]

How does one come to have that much Ubiquit gear? Awesome setup.

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for the kind words. As to why so much gear … this is a pretty big house with about 120 network drops in almost every room. Since this is new construction, we took the opportunity to wire for everything, which means we need a bunch of switching capacity. Additionally, there’ll be a bit more stuff inside the rack, so we planned for some growth.

[@remio0912]

@@CarolinaHomeTech Looking forward to more videos.

[@romayojr]

i see a rack build video, i watch and like the said video. i'll be following along this journey with you i hope you don't mind

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for the support! Of course I don't mind, the more the merrier!

[@markhuf]

Nice setup and planning. Just subscribed to your channel to follow along. I do agree with the “fiber comment”. If you can, runs some some drops. With all you have in your rack, (and it seems you like tech 😉) you might want to (re)consider the “Aggregation Pro Switch”? 🤔 Enjoy!

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your support! Fiber is not currently installed, but we arranged for an easy upgrade path, see my response to the fiber comment. Also, don't tell my wife, but I may end up getting the Hi-Capacity Aggregation switch after all. There's no rule that says I can only use it for aggregation, is there? ;)

[@markhuf]

@@CarolinaHomeTech 😂✅👍

[@christianlohmann8577]

I have the UI stuff, now looking for the house around 😂

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Haha, that's how I started myself, with a Unifi Dream Router (which is still in use in our rental right now). This stuff is addictive! :D

[@finn_h06]

That is a beatuifull rack

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks!

[@bentheguru4986]

So, you have spent a motza on all the bling, now lets see if you get the config right as I already see some warning signs....

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Hey! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment! Yeah this stuff ain‘t cheap, but it‘s a pretty big house with about 120 network drops, so what you see in this video does not really seem like overkill to me, given what we‘ll use it for. I admit I never designed and configured a network of this size. If you don’t mind sharing what warning signs you see, I’d be very grateful to learn how I could do better.

[@bentheguru4986]

@@CarolinaHomeTech I rollout UniFi in a lot of larger installations feeding anything from 50 to 400 access points along with associated switching and control. I also run a home DC (not a lab, mine is production) and yeah, like my bling. Next video is the one where boo boo's can sneak up. For now, power management , filtering and UPS will be key. No, commercial UPS solutions wont fit in the rack and deliver. I use Mains inverter-chargers now that have UPS funtion but in better shapes and allows much, bigger battery options.

[@damd6792]

Wow :) Like the Ubiquiti Stuff. I think this the biggest "Home Network" i ever seen :))))))) Nice to wait for Part2 :))))

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for your support! Yeah, I have been looking on KZbin for larger-scale hone Unifi installations. @MactelecomNetworks did a few for offices, and @LinusTechTips sometimes does things for big events, but these don't really match up with what I need. So I'm kinda winging it! But hopefully my videos will help others understand how to scale to medium-sized installations (assuming I will figure it out myself first).

[@CompletelyLawless]

Are you in RDU or CLT area?

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

RDU area. It's just gorgeous here!

[@CompletelyLawless]

@@CarolinaHomeTech Me too. North Raleigh. I just built a home that finished in 2022 and am a Ubiquiti, home theater, and networking fan as well. I ran OM4 multimode fiber to a few locations which was very helpful for an upstairs switch and theatre room. The Internet speeds here are crazy! Looks like a great house!

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks! It's the first time (and hopefully last) that I'm building a house, and I'm very excited about all the tech I get to put in. Stay tuned for more videos in the coming weeks :)

[@stefsmurf]

What's the cost? Unifi stuff ain't cheap, and it looks to be around 10k just from a brief google.

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Yeah I think you’re not that far off if you include the rack and the labor for our security company to wire up the patch panels. If I get to it, I might post a video with the cost breakdown of the network setup. I would’ve certainly loved to watch a video about that before I started this journey, to avoid some sticker shock!

[@hectorrodriguez4384]

This is not a so called “basic network install”

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Haha, good point. It is the "basic network" of our house, with other networking technology being (Wifi, Zigbee, LoRa) built on top of it. Maybe "network foundation" would have been more accurate? :)

[@jakobholzner]

Background music too loud!

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks for the feedback! I agree the sound quality is bad. I think the problem is actually that my voiceover is too quiet. I used my MacBook microphone for voiceover, and had the hardest time mixing things together in ... iMovie :D Good news is already got myself a proper voiceover mic from Amazon for the next video.

[@pawpaw5821]

@@CarolinaHomeTech even better, ditch the sound completely while you are speaking. We want to listen to the words you speak, not words masked by “elevator music”. Nice video, though, and good to see your network.

[@CarolinaHomeTech]

Thanks, I’ll definitely do that for the next video!